Something Fishy Here Trivia Quiz

Answer: seahorse

Classifying animals is not simple. Scientists like to base it primarily on common ancestors, rather than on seemingly similar visuals, behaviors or habitats. Generally accepted characteristics for fish include that they are cold blooded, breathe with gills, live and swim in water, have backbones or cartilage, and have fins rather than limbs. However there are exceptions, that is creatures which don't meet all these criteria but are considered fish because of ancestry. Seahorses swim upright, have a prehensile tail, and unlike other fish have a flexible neck. The slowest fish in the world is the dwarf seahorse, which zips along at a top speed of five feet per hour!

Crayfish are crustaceans, resembling miniature lobsters. Cuttlefish are closely related to squids and octopuses, and like all mollusks do not have a backbone. Starfish are primitive echinoderms. They have no head.

Answer: orca

Also known as "killer whales," orcas (Orcinus orca) are toothed marine mammals belonging to the dolphin family. So, although they breathe air like whales, they are neither whales nor fish. They got the "killer" nickname because sailors saw them attacking whales.

The scientific name Orcinus is after the Roman god Orcus, who punished evil doers in the underworld. Orcas can grow to a length of up to ten meters, and are fierce, lethal predators. Scientists consider them to be at the top of the ocean food chain, and to have intelligence rivaling that of chimpanzees.

Answer: a sea slug

One kind of slug (counterfeit coin) really could get into a vending machine. We hope the blue glaucus (Glaucus Atlanticus) never does, as it carries toxic cells within that can deliver a painful sting to a human who touches it. It gets these venomous cells from swallowing bits of Portugese man o'war and jellyfish which it eats. Somehow, it's able to store the poison in its own body and then use it to defend against predators.

This small sea slug looks like some kind of tiny winged lizard-dragon, with pointed dark blue appendages (cerata) fanning out from front, middle and behind.

Its maximum length is three to four centimeters. Its back is silver/grey and its ventral side (stomach) is bluish. It floats upside down on the ocean surface, and these colors provide camouflage against predators above and below. the blue glaucus is one of over 85,000 species in the phylum Mollusca.

Answer: lampreys

None of the other choices are fish. Barnacles are crustaceans, mussels are mollusks, and sea cucumbers are echinoderms. Lampreys are elongated and tube-like, with a round suction mouth at one end filled with teeth for attaching onto a host. Most lampreys are parasitic, meaning they live on and derive nutrients from another organism.

A few species are actually filter feeders, thus are not parasites. Lampreys are often misidentified as eels, which they are not, despite a superficial resemblance. The name lamprey probably derives from the Latin "lampetra" (stone licker).

Answer: a bale

There is scant information on why certain animals, including turtles, carry their particular group names, but is is an interesting, often amusing, and at times absurd study. All sites I visited agree on "bale" as the most common name for congregations of turtles. "Nest" and "turn" were often mentioned, and one site listed "flotilla" as well as "bale" for sea turtles in particular. Turtles (order- Testudines) are reptiles, but aquatic turtles have amphibious qualities, and some can even obtain oxygen while underwater. Certain species absorb air through the neck skin, while others have specialized anal sacs with gill-like structures which do the job.

Some turtles can hold their breath for up to three hours while underwater.

Answer: wild sturgeon roe

"True" caviar is the roe (eggs) from one of three species of sturgeon, beluga, osetra, or sevruga, found in the wild, mostly in the Caspian Sea, with smaller numbers in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, all in southwestern Asia. Caviar is harvested from mature sturgeons; the older the fish, the softer and more flavorful the roe.

Although it can be preserved through pasteurization, connoisseurs prefer fresh. These factors all contribute to the seemingly outrageous price of this commodity, often hundreds of dollars per ounce.

Much of the world considers it a culinary delicacy and beluga caviar is the most desirable, therefore the most expensive. In some less discerning countries, the term is more broadly used to describe fish eggs of salmon, trout, lumpfish, whitefish or carp. So, if you're at a black tie affair, and you see a bowl with a mound of fishy smelling tiny black spheres with a silver spoon stuck in it, whether you like the taste or not, you can rest assured the host spent a lot on the party.

The word "caviar" comes from the Persian language.

Answer: nailfish

The nailfish is the imposter; no such animal swims the sea. Many are familiar with the hammerhead shark and the sawfish, two of the more bizarre denizens of the sea. Sawfish are actually a kind of ray, and they behave accordingly, mostly lying in camouflage on the ocean floor, or swimming close to the bottom.

Their defining characteristic is a long, narrow nose extension lined with teeth, called a rostrum. It really does look like the blade of a chainsaw, and the owner wields it with amazing quickness and dexterity to spear fish, which it then passes to its underside where its mouth is. Hammerhead sharks use their oddly mallet shaped heads to pin their favorite prey, stingrays, to the ocean floor.

They can grow up to seven meters long and weigh a thousand pounds.

The royal knifefish is most familiar as an exotic aquarium fish. It's found in Southeast Asia in the wild. It grows up to a meter in length, and is actually not ideal for a pet as it is high maintenance and requires frequent changes of water.

Answer: made of skin; act as sensory organ providing smell and taste

Catfish "whiskers," more accurately and scientifically called "barbels," are actually made of skin. In the dark waters near the bottom where these fish operate, vision is limited, so they use these sensitive feelers to find their way and help locate food. Each barbel is packed with tiny taste buds and olfactory sensors. Anyone who has caught a catfish has probably heard the strange sound they make, similar to a cat purring, which may also factor into their name.

Answer: tarpon

Going through life catching fish with the spear on your face seems to work for three of these fish, but tarpon use the more standard mouth grab to catch the smaller fish and the occasional crab on which they feed. "Megalops atlanticus," also known as silver king as well as tarpon, prefer coastal waters, estuaries and lagoons. One interesting characteristic of these fish is an ability to fill their swim bladders with air and obtain oxygen from them, almost like lungs.

This behavior is known as "rolling," and it's one way anglers spot tarpon.

They are much sought after game fish for their size, jumping ability, and tenacious fighting when hooked. A massive 286 pound tarpon was caught off the coast of Guinea-Bissau, Africa, in 2003.

Answer: coelacanth

The giant squid is a species still swimming the oceans, but it's not a fish. Two of the other choices are giant extinct fishes that lived millions of years ago (mya): megalodon (27-2.6 mya) and rhizodont (377-310 mya). These behemoths occupied the top of the food chain in their respective environments and their huge fossilized teeth prove it. Megaladon ruled the sea, and rhizodont inhabited rivers.

The coelacanths are a rare order of only two remaining species, one found in the West Indian Ocean and the other off the coast of eastern Africa. These lobe-finned fish are primitive and basically unchanged from millions of years ago. The scientific community was shocked when museum curator Marjorie Latimer described the fish brought to her by a local fisherman minding his business near the Chalumna River on South Africa's eastern coast.